In the electronics industry, electrical connectors are mounted to printed circuit boards, such as by right angled mounting, for electrical connection to circuit traces on the boards. Typically, the electrical connectors are imprinted onto the printed circuit boards by automated methods, and the electrical connections are wave soldered to the circuits on the boards. The connectors usually include some form of locking or retention feature to hold the connectors to the boards and, in addition, the connectors include a commoning feature to ground a shield or other component of the connector to a ground trace on the board, often by insertion of a commoning element through a hole of the printed circuit board.
One type of electrical connector of the character described above is known in the electrical connector industry as a miniature or sub-miniature D connector. The connector includes a plug and a receptacle, each having an insulative housing containing a plurality of mating terminals or contacts. In order to shield against RF/EM interference, an exterior metal or conductive shell typically encloses the housing The shielding shell is effectively grounded to the ground traces on the printed circuit board.
Often, the locking or retention feature and the commoning feature to ground the shielding shell are provided by a one-piece or multi-piece stamped and formed sheet metal board lock member. The member includes a body portion and depending leg means positionable through a locking hole in the printed circuit board. The leg means both lock the connector to the board and establish a grounding connection for commoning the shielding shell to the ground traces on the printed circuit board. It has become popular to form the leg means by a pair of legs which can exert opposing forces within the hole in the printed circuit board to provide for good retention. The legs may have locking hooks for locking beneath the bottom surface of the printed circuit board.
One of the problems with providing a conductive board lock member with a plurality of locking legs, such as the opposing pair of legs described above, is that there is a considerable loss of metal during the stamping and forming process of the board lock member. For instance, in a stamped blank form, the legs may project outwardly from the body portion of the board lock member, and the legs then are bent at an angle to the body so that they can be inserted through the hole in the printed circuit board. The body may be a fairly narrow portion of the board lock member, but the projecting legs, prior to being bent or formed, take up a considerable area of the sheet metal material, resulting in considerable waste. This invention is directed to solving these problems by providing a novel configuration of a board lock member having a pair of locking legs for insertion through a hole in the printed circuit board.